USA > New York > New York City > Prominent families of New York; being an account in biographical form of individuals and families distinguished as representatives of the social, professional and civic life of New York city > Part 72
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In 1864, Mr. Oakes married Abby R. Haskell, daughter of Henry Haskell. His children are Walter, Grace, Zillah, Georgiana and Prescott Oakes. He has an estate at Mamaroneck, where he makes his home. He is a member of the Metropolitan, Union League, and New York Yacht .clubs, of several clubs in the Northwest, and of the American Geographical Society, of which he is a life member.
Mrs. Oakes is descended from the Coffin and the Phelps families of Essex County, Mass. Her mother was Sarah Coffin Phelps, and her grandmother was a Coffin. Walter Oakes, the eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. Oakes, married Mary Beekman Taylor, daughter of Cort- landt Taylor, formerly of New York, and now of St. Paul, Minn. Grace Oakes, the eldest daughter, married Frederick Brooks, grandson of Peter Brooks, of Boston. Zillah Oakes is the wife of George Curtis Rand, Jr., son of George C. Rand, of New York. Georgiana Oakes married, in 1896, Lawrence Greer.
430
HERMANN OELRICHS
M ORE than a century ago, the mercantile firm of Oelrichs & Lurman was one of the leading houses of Baltimore, and its members were reckoned among the foremost citizens of that city, socially and financially. The family to which the senior members of that firm traced their ancestry was distinguished in the annals of Bremen. Its records go back to 1325, when the patrician head of the family was banished to Schleswig-Holstein on account of trouble with one of the burgher class of the town. His family followed him into exile, and thenceforth became estab- lished in that duchy. The lineage of the American Oelrichs goes back in direct line to this branch of the family.
It is nearly one hundred years since a member of this firm came from Bremen to New York, to establish the branch that has remained one of the stable mercantile houses of New York down to the present time. For many years the New York firm was connected with the well- known house of H. H. Meier & Co. in Bremen, the head of which was a distinguished member of Parliament, president of the First Bank in Bremen, president of the North German Lloyd Steamship Company, and an intimate friend of Prince Bismarck. In the early years of its history, most of the partners of the New York firm were graduates from the celebrated old house, known under the peculiar name of Widow John Lang's Son & Co. Henry Oelrichs, of that branch of the family to-day represented by his son, Mr. Hermann Oelrichs, came from Bremen to this country in 1837. He was the son of Johann Gerhard Oelrichs and Catherine Holler. He has been described as a whole-souled good business man, and made a very distinct impress upon New York life after his settlement here, being a large shipping merchant and the agent for the North German Lloyd Steam- ship Company. He married a daughter of Dr. Frederick May, of Washington, D. C.
Mr. Hermann Oelrichs was born in Baltimore, Md., June 8th, 1850. He was instructed in private schools in his early years, and then sent to Germany to complete his education. He returned home to go into business, entering the office of Oelrichs & Co., of which firm he became a partner in 1875. Since 1887, when Gustave Schwab, Sr., retired, Mr. Oelrichs has been at the head of the house and in charge of the American business of the North German Lloyd Steamship Line. He is a member of the Metropolitan, Union, Manhattan, Lawyers', Players, Racquet, New York Yacht, Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht, and other clubs. He has had for years the reputation of being one of the best all-around amateur athletes in the country.
In 1890, Mr. Oelrichs married Theresa Alice Fair, daughter of the late Senator James G. Fair, of Nevada, one of the famous men of the Pacific coast. Senator Fair, who was born in Ireland in 1831, died in San Francisco in 1894. He went to California when the first excitement about gold discoveries broke out, and in 1860 moved to Nevada, where, out of the Consolidated Virginia Silver Mines on the Comstock Ledge, which the bonanza firm of Mackey, Flood, Fair & O'Brien controlled, he made a fortune. From 1881 to 1887, he was a member of the United States Senate from Nevada. Mrs. Oelrichs is the oldest daughter and third child of Senator Fair.
Mr. and Mrs. Oelrichs live in East Fifty-seventh Street. They spend much time at their sum- mer home in Newport, where Mr. Oelrichs owns Rosecliffe, the property that was long the home of the famous historian, George Bancroft, Virginia Fair, the sister of Mrs. Oelrichs, makes her home with them. Mr. and Mrs. Oelrichs have one child, Hermann Oelrichs, Jr. Mr. Oelrichs has taken considerable interest in political affairs. He is a Democrat, and at one time was a member of the Democratic National Committee for the State of New York, but resigned that position for personal reasons in 1895. The Democratic nomination for Mayor of the city of New York has been frequently offered to him, and as frequently declined. Lucie Oelrichs, daughter of Henry Oelrichs, married Colonel William Jay, of New York. Another daughter, Hildegarde Oelrichs, married Richard Henderson, of Liverpool, England. Henry Oelrichs, a son of this family, is unmarried, and another son, Charles May Oelrichs, married Blanche de Loosey, and has a daughter, Lily Oelrichs. He is a member of the Metropolitan and Union clubs.
431
DAVID B. OGDEN
A MONG the many wealthy and influential families of New Jersey in the Colonial period, the Ogdens held a foremost position. They played important parts in public affairs in East Jersey, under the proprietory Government, and their descendants have distinguished them- selves to an eminent degree in public life in that State and elsewhere down to the present day. John Ogden was the first of the family name in this country and a founder of the town of Elizabeth. He was settled in Stamford, Conn., in 1641, and three years later removed to Hemp- stead, Long Island, with the Reverend Robert Fordham. Subsequently he removed to South- ampton, of which place he was a magistrate in 1656-57-58, a representative to the General Court of Connecticut in 1655-Long Island then being an appendage to the Connecticut Colony-and a member of the Upper House in 1661. He became one of the first settlers of a new Colony on the shores of Newark Bay, in 1665 was a justice of the peace there, and the same year a member of the Governor's Council, being a member of the Legislature in 1668. Under the Dutch, in 1673, he was burgomaster of the six towns of the Jersey Colony. His children were John, Jonathan, David, Joseph and Benjamin. Of these the three elder were original associates under the Governor Nicolls grants in 1665. John Ogden was conspicuous in 1671 in maintaining the rights secured by the Nicolls Patent. Jonathan Ogden was deacon of the church in 1694, and Benjamin Ogden was a sheriff in the same year.
David Ogden, the ancestor in the second generation of that branch of the family to which Mr. David B. Ogden belongs, was born in 1691, and married Elizabeth Ward, daughter of Lieu- tenant Samuel Swayne, who went from Branford, Conn., to Newark, N. J., in 1656. His son, the Reverend Uzal Ogden, D. D., was the rector of the first Episcopal Church of Newark, which was founded by another son, Colonel Josiah Ogden, who was the ancestor in the fourth generation of Mr. David B. Ogden. He was born in 1680 and died in 1763, being a man of wealth and influence, a Colonel of the militia and a member of the Provincial Assembly of New Jersey for Essex County in 1716, 1721 and 1738. His first wife was Catharine H. Low, daughter of Harden- bush Low. She was the ancestress of the subject of this sketch.
David Ogden, son of Colonel Josiah Ogden, was one of the most distinguished public men of his day. He was born in 1707 and died in 1800. Graduated from Yale College in 1728, he became one of the great lawyers of New Jersey and New York, and from 1772 to 1776, was a Judge of the Supreme Court. During the Revolutionary War he was a loyalist and lived in New York, where he was a member of the Board of Deputies, in 1779. After peace had been declared, he went to England for a time, but afterwards returned and settled in Kings County, Long Island. His wife was Gertrude Gouverneur, daughter of Abraham Gouverneur, and granddaughter of the Honorable Jacob Leisler. His son, Samuel Ogden, married Euphemia Morris, daughter of Judge Morris, of Morrisania, and his other children were allied in marriage to leading families in New Jersey and New York.
David B. Ogden, Sr., was the son of Judge David Ogden. He was born in 1769 and died in 1849, and was a distinguished lawyer. His wife was Margaretta E. Ogden, a cousin, daughter of Abraham Ogden, another great lawyer and public man. The children of David B. Ogden and his wife, Margaretta, were Samuel M., who married Susan Hall; Sarah Ludlow; Gouverneur M., who married Harriet Evans, daughter of Cadwalader Evans, of Philadelphia; Thomas L., who married Jane Johnson; Euphemia, Eliza Du Luze, Frances L. and David Bayard Ogden.
Mr. David B. Ogden, third of the name, is the son of Gouverneur M. Ogden. He was born in New York and was graduated from Columbia College in the class of 1869. Following in the footsteps of his distinguished ancestors, he was educated for the legal profession. He married Mary E. Sherman and lives in East Tenth Street. He also has a country residence at Bar Harbor, Me. He is a member of the Tuxedo, University, Church, Century and Morristown clubs and of the Bar Association.
432
FREDERIC PEPOON OLCOTT
D ESCENDED from notable Puritan ancestors, the Olcotts trace their lineage directly to Thomas Olcott, who was one of the founders of Hartford, Conn. He belonged to a good English family and was well educated, and before he came to America was engaged in mercantile life. Historians of the early Colonial families say that he was probably a member of one of the first companies of Colonists which came from London to Massachusetts, and was settled for a few months in Newtown, now Cambridge, Mass., in 1634. When a company was formed, under the direction of the Reverend Thomas Hooker, to move westward and establish a new Colony on the banks of the Connecticut River, Thomas Olcott was one of the party and left Newtown in 1635. He became one of the leading and most active members of the new community of Hartford, and, associated with Edward Hopkins, Richard Lord, William Whiting and others, engaged in trade in Connecticut for several years. His death occurred in 1654. His widow, Abigail, lived until 1693.
Thomas Olcott, of Hartford, son of the pioneer, lived nearly through the first quarter of the eighteenth century, dying at an advanced age, and his wife lived until 1721. In the next genera- tion, Thomas Olcott, who bore the name of his father and his grandfather, married, in 1691, Sarah Foote, daughter of Nathaniel Foote, of Wethersfield, Conn. She died in 1756. Their son, the fourth Thomas Olcott, lived throughout his life in Stratford, Conn., where he died in 1795. The second wife of the fourth Thomas Olcott, the great-grandmother of the subject of this sketch, was Sarah (Tomlinson) Thompson, of Stratford, widow of Hezekiah Thompson and daughter of Zachariah Tomlinson, of one of the earliest Connecticut families. She was descended from Henry Tomlinson, who, with his wife and several children, came from Derbyshire, England, in 1652 and settled in Milford, Conn., afterwards removing to Stratford, where he died in 1681. The English ancestor of the family was George Tomlinson, of Derby, Derbyshire, who belonged to the landed gentry and, according to tradition, came from a noble family. In 1600, hemarried Maria Hyde in St. Peter's Church, Derby. Thomas Olcott died in 1795 and his wife in 1811.
The grandfather of Mr. Frederic Pepoon Olcott was Josiah Olcott, of Hudson, N. Y .; his grandmother was Deborah Worth, daughter of Thomas Worth, of Nantucket, Mass. Mr. Olcott's father was Thomas W. Olcott, of Albany, a prominent citizen of that city throughout his life. For many years he was president of the Mechanics' and Farmers' Bank. His wife, whom he married in 1818, was Caroline Pepoon, daughter of Daniel Pepoon, of Stockbridge, Mass.
Mr. Frederic P. Olcott was born in Albany, N. Y., in 1841. His early education in the local schools was supplemented by a course of study in the Albany Academy. Deciding upon a business career, he entered his father's bank as clerk, when he was sixteen years of age. Hold- ing that position for several years, until he had secured a thorough insight into business methods, he left the bank and started in business for himself, being for some time engaged in the lumber trade in Albany and its vicinity. Afterwards he became connected with the banking house of Blake, Brothers & Co., of New York, and with Phelps, Stokes & Co., with whom he remained for several years. He was Comptroller of the State of New York, 1877-80. In 1884, he became president of the Central Trust Company of New York, a position that he has retained to the present time. Interested in many other important commercial and financial corporations, he has been a director of the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, the Bank of America, the Sixth Avenue Street Railway and the National Union Bank.
In 1862, Mr. Olcott married Mary Esmay, and has two children, Edith and Dudley Olcott. His brother, Lieutenant-Colonel Dudley Olcott, is connected with the Mechanics' and Farmers' Bank of Albany, of which his father was for so many years president. The city residence of Mr. and Mrs. Olcott is in East Fifty-third Street and their country home is in Bernardsville, N. J. Mr. Olcott is a member of the Metropolitan, Union League, Riding, Ladies', Barnard, Manhattan, Essex County Country, and New York Yacht clubs and the Downtown Association. He is also a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History.
433
STEPHEN HENRY OLIN
T HE family of which Mr. Stephen H. Olin is the New York representative in this generation was probably of Huguenot origin. John Olin, its American ancestor, was little more than a lad when he arrived in New England. He was not a voluntary immigrant, but had been taken on the coast of Wales in 1678 by the press gang of a British man-of-war. When the man-of-war anchored in Boston Harbor, a few months later, he sought the first opportunity to escape from his captors and cast his lot in the New World. From Boston he went to Rhode Island and settled in East Greenwich. In 1708, he married Susannah Spencer, whose parents came from Wales and established themselves in Rhode Island. John and Susannah (Spencer) Olin had two sons and one daughter.
Henry Olin, the second son of John Olin, had a son, Justin, who was born in 1739 in East Greenwich, R. I. Justin Olin married Sarah Dwinnell and was the father of the Honorable Henry Olin, who was born in Shaftsbury, Vt., in 1768, and settled in Leicester, Vt., about 1788. He was chosen a member of the Legislature for the first time in 1799, and was reelected for twenty-one successive terms. In 1801, he became assistant Judge of the County Court, held that office for eight years and was Chief Justice for fifteen years. In 1820 and 1821, he was a State Councilor, a Member of Congress in 1824, and Lieutenant-Governor of the State, 1827-30. In politics he was a Jeffersonian Democrat, and afterwards a Whig. He removed to Salisbury, Vt., in 1837 and died there. His wife, whom he married in 1788, was Lois Richardson.
The Reverend Stephen Olin, D. D., LL. D., eldest son of Henry and Lois (Richardson) Olin, was born at Leicester, Vt., in 1797. He graduated from Middlebury College, Vermont, in 1820, and going to the South, soon after graduation, attached himself to the South Carolina Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and was stationed at Charleston, S. C. For a time he was connected with a seminary in Abbeville District, S. C., and in 1826 was a professor in Franklin College, Georgia. In 1832, he was elected professor in Randolph-Macon Union College, Virginia, and in 1842 became president of Wesleyan University, at Middletown, Conn., which position he held at the time of his death, in 1851. In 1828, he was ordained an elder of the Metho- dist Episcopal Church; in 1834, the degree of D. D. was conferred upon him simultaneously by Randolph-Macon College and Franklin College, Yale College giving him that of LL.D. in 1837. The Reverend Dr. Olin went abroad in 1837 and made an extensive tour of the East, describing his experience in a volume, entitled, Travels in Egypt, Petraea and the Holy Land. In 1846, he was a delegate to the first meeting of the Evangelical Alliance in London. After his death, his ser- mons were published, as well as his Life and Letters. He had an established rank as one of the leading educators of his generation in the United States. Dr. Olin married, in 1843, Julia M. Lynch, who was born in New York in 1814, and died in 1879. Her father was Judge James Lynch, of New York, and her mother was Janet N. Tillotson, granddaughter of Judge Robert R. Livingston, of Clermont.
Mr. Stephen Henry Olin, son of the Reverend Stephen and Julia M. (Lynch) Olin, was born in Middletown, Conn., in 1847. He was graduated from Wesleyan University in 1866, and in 1895 received from it the degree of LL.D. He is a lawyer, and a member of the firm of Olin & Rives. He is Assistant Adjutant-General and Chief-of-Staff of the First Brigade of the National Guard, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. In 1894, he was one of the Commissioners to revise the Public School Law. He has been president of the Wesleyan Alumni Association, and is a trustee of that University and of the New York Public Library. In 1879, Mr. Olin married Alice W. Barlow, daughter of S. L. M. Barlow. She died in 1882, leaving two daughters, Alice Townsend and Julia Lynch Olin.
The city residence of Mr. Olin is at 136 East Nineteenth Street, and his country home is Glenburn, Rhinebeck-on-Hudson. He is a member of the Century, University, Players, Lawyers' and City clubs, the Downtown Association and the Bar Association.
434
ALEXANDER ECTOR ORR
I N the contemporary movements for the development of New York's commercial interests and for securing a healthier tone in public affairs, and a purer administration of the government of the metropolis, the business men of the community have been unusually prominent, and have energetically concerned themselves in the practical work leading to such results. One of the active citizens in this work, and one of the most untiring and influential, has been Mr. Alexander Ector Orr. Although Mr. Orr is a resident of Brooklyn, his business and social interests, as well as his activity in public affairs, have fully identified him with the metropolis. He is of Scottish descent, of the clan McGregor. His family, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, moved from Scotland to Ireland. William Orr, his father, the head of the family in his generation, lived in Strabane, County Tyrone, Ireland; his wife was Mary Moore, daughter of David Moore, of Sheephill, County Londonderry.
Mr. Alexander E. Orr was born in Strabane, March 2d, 1831. As a boy he was intended for service with the East India Company. An accident, however, led to a change in his plans, and he went to live with the Reverend John Haven, Archdeacon of the diocese of Derry and Raphoe, at Killaloo Glebe, who superintended his education. In 1850, he made a trip by sailing vessel to the United States, visiting several Southern ports. Upon his return home, he made up his mind to settle permanently in this country, and returned to New York the following year. His first engagement here was with a firm of shipping and commission merchants, and in 1858, he entered the employ of David Dows & Co. Three years later, he was admitted to be a partner in the firm, and in 1859 was elected to a membership in the Produce Exchange. Always active in the affairs of the Exchange, he has been several times a director and the president of the institution, and was also secretary of the committee that had charge of the important work of erecting the Exchange building.
For years, Mr. Orr has been chairman of the Arbitration Committee of the Exchange, and is a director in several banks, insurance companies and other fiduciary institutions. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Association, the City Club, the Hamilton Club of Brooklyn, the Marine and Field Club, the Atlantic Yacht Club and the American Geographical Society. A member of the Protestant Episcopal Church, he is one of the incorporators and a trustee of the corporation that has charge of the cathedral and schools built by Alexander T. Stewart, at Garden City, Long Island. He is also president of the Board of Rapid Transit Commis- sioners of the City of New York.
In 1856, Mr. Orr married Juliet Buckingham Dows, who was the daughter of Ammi Dows, of the firm of David Dows & Company. His second wife was Margaret Shippen, daughter of Nicholas Luquer, and granddaughter of Dominick Lynch, of Brooklyn. Mrs. Orr is a member of the famous Shippen family, that for two hundred and fifty years has been prominently identified with the State of Pennsylvania. She is in the seventh generation from Edward Shippen, the pioneer, who, the son of William Shippen, was born in England in 1639, came to Boston in 1668, and became a wealthy merchant. He married Elizabeth Lybrand, a Quakeress, and removed to Philadelphia in 1693. He was a member of the Assembly and Speaker, a member of the Provincial Council for sixteen years, a Judge of the Supreme Court and Mayor of the City of Philadelphia. His son, Joseph Shippen, was a scientist and intimately associated with Benjamin Franklin. His grandson, Edward Shippen, was a merchant, Mayor of the City of Philadelphia in 1744, Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, a county Judge, one of the founders of the town of Shippensberg, and also of the College of New Jersey and the Pennsylvania Hospital. His great-grandson, Edward Shippen, was the famous Chief Justice of the Superior Court of the State of Pennsylvania, and for more than fifty years a leading member of the judiciary of that State. Mrs. Orr is the great-great- grandchild of Chief Justice Shippen. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Orr are: Jane Dows, Mary More, and Juliet Ector Orr, who married Albert H. Munsell.
435
JAMES OTIS
O NE of the greatest families of New England, distinguished for the patriotism of its repre- sentatives and the valuable services that they have rendered to their country in times of national peril, is that of Otis, of which Mr. James Otis is the representative in New York in this generation. John Otis, the American ancestor of the family, came with his wife and children from Hingham, Norfolk County, England, in 1635, and was one of the first settlers of the town of Hingham, Mass. His wife was Mary Jacob. In the second generation, his son, John Otis, who married Mercy Bacon, was born in Hingham in 1657, and for eighteen years was a Colonel in the Massachusetts militia, for twenty years a representative to the General Court, for twenty-one years a member of the Council, for thirteen years Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, and also a Judge of Probate. He died in Barnstable in 1727.
Colonel James Otis, son of the second John Otis, was born in West Barnstable in 1702, and died in 1778. He was a member of the Provincial Legislature in 1758, Speaker of the House, Judge of Probate for Barnstable County, Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, 1764-75, and president of the Council Board during the first years of the Revolution. He was closely associated with Adams, Quincy, Hancock, and other great leaders of the Revolutionary period. His wife was Mary Alleyne, of Wethersfield, Conn., daughter of Joseph Alleyne, who belonged to the Plymouth, Mass., family of that name. He had a family of thirteen children. One of his most celebrated sons was James Otis, 1725-1783, the Revolutionary patriot and orator, the leader in Massachussetts against the royal government, and after the war a member of the State Legislature .. Samuel Alleyne Otis, son of Colonel James Otis, and great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born in Barnstable, Mass., in 1740, and died in Washington in 1814. He was graduated from Harvard College in 1759, studied law, but afterwards entered upon mercantile pursuits. In 1776, he was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and in 1784 was Speaker of the House. In 1780, he was a member of the Board of War and also a member of the convention that framed a constitution for the State, and in 1788 a delegate to the Continental Congress. In 1787, he was a commissioner to negotiate with the insurgents in Shay's Rebellion. After the adoption of the Federal Constitution, he was secretary of the United States Senate. His wife was Elizabeth Gray, who belonged to one of Boston's noted families, the daughter of Harrison Gray, at one time Receiver-General of the State of Massachusetts.
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